Speaking Truthiness To Power

Dave Pell didn’t like the speech Stephen Colbert delivered at the White House Correspondent Dinner a couple of days ago; as Dave said, he was waiting for “someone to make reference to Bea Arthurâ€™s dick and it never happened.” And it shouldn’t have. Colbert was delivering a satirical speech/roast of someone who in the future may be charged as a war criminal. As Henry Kissinger is considered a war criminal by some for his actionsfor his actions during the Vietnam War among other instances, George W. Bush may be racking up a list of countries he will not be able to visit in the future.

In fact, Colbert addresses Pell’s assertion that he might not be funny, and that these are not always funny times (remember, he’s trying to be a smart ass):

But the rest of you [addressing the media], what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they’re super-depressing. And if that’s your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good — over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn’t want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

Most of the large media corporations, from which many people get their news, dropped the ball covering the Bush Administration, no matter how much they want to rewrite history now. And that fact should be stated in front of both the message makers and the president.

Moreover, as noted on Talking Points Memo, Don Imus did a job on Bill Clinton, on par with Colbert. How come the media blackout for the Colbert speech?

The Colbert speech did get one great review that I read, by wonder blogger James Wolcott, who writes that Colbert “delivered the message he intended to deliver. Mission accomplished.”